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Amazing Life # 2 – A little game called life

‘Amazing life’ is a regular thread about little things that make us happy. Today’s weird little thing is A little game called life

Me: ‘Man you are dead – I will make sure you fall.’

My best friend : ‘We will see when that happens but for now I will kill you’

No, it’s not a fight, it’s not a misunderstanding and it is definitely no ‘Getting back at each other’ session. It is a part of life at school when in between periods and sometimes even during them there was nothing much to do, and we managed to use our writing instruments for a worthy cause.

It was ‘PEN WAR’, this simple game has some simple rules and many names – ‘Pen-Ne, Pen Fight, Pen battle and if we ever had a full day free in the school (which we unfortunately rarely did) it could even be a world war or maybe a world cup.

Playing was the fun part and a loss or to win was merely a way to the next game. For the first time we were keen on buying pens and our folks looked on in astonishment. We were looking for bigger, better, heavier, edgier and preferably free.

All this game needed was two weapons (pens), two warriors (We), one arena ( The top of a desk or the teachers table), A referee ( Cricket team captain) and without fail this game gathered an audience. The rules were simple:

You hit the pen in any direction like you do in ‘Carom Board’ (You are not allowed to drag your hand)

Both ( Or all in case of more players) will get only one turn at a time.

The objective is to push the other people’s’ pen off the table.

Last man standing -Wins!

But as it is – this game had a lot of ‘Happyness’ to spread. It taught us to compete without jealousy, fight with ferocity and fall without fear. That is when we learnt about ‘Fairplay’ and that made us happy.

Upon wonder I find these elements to have left our system as we came of age. ‘Fairplay’ is obsolete and we play now only to win and earn and never to ‘lose and learn.’ Where did that ‘happyness’ go? Go find!